In version v0.0.5, I ported the game engine from OpenGL to Apple's Metal API.
Initially, I planned to keep working on the 3D soccer game using v0.0.4 of the engine. However, I decided to port the engine once I saw an Augmented Reality demo. I realized that Augmented Reality (AR) is the future of gaming and it may be a good idea to have this feature available in the engine. However, the AR framework only works with the Metal API; it does not support OpenGL.
To be honest, my goal was to port the engine to Metal in a year or two. I was not planning to port it so soon. Part of it was that I feel I'm still learning Game Engine development and didn't want to overwhelm myself. The other reason was that porting a Game Engine from one API to another is not an easy task. When I saw the AR demo, it was the push that I needed.
To my surprise, porting the engine to Metal was quite simple. In less than two weeks I had ported the major components of the rendering engine. I also became aware of some misconceptions I had with computer graphics and OpenGL; essentially with Normal Maps and Shadows. Metal is so simple to use that it highlighted some errors I was making with OpenGL.
Overall, I would say that the porting took about a month to complete. It does not include the time it took to learn Metal, which it should take you about a week; assuming you know computer graphics.
Here is a video showcasing the 3D soccer game with Metal. In my opinion, it looks better than when I was using OpenGL, but then again I am using better 3D models.
So, the engine now runs entirely on Metal.
Goodbye OpenGL
Hola, Metal
Thanks for reading.
